ouch

I’m back from my exit of this country. The trip to Romania was fantastic. I’ll try to post some pictures later. We spent a week among the mountains and gigantic trees of a city called Braşov. As I’ve said before, I love trees. They towered, reaching high towards the sky.

The trees also became a fun hazard to avoid as I attempted to ski. The last time I went skiing was when I was in fourth grade for a day or two in North Carolina. The skiing in Braşov was a little more intense then the hills back there.

The first day we took it pretty easy and went at it for about 3 or 4 hours. The next day my back was quite upset with me. I took it off and spent some time reading and watching it snow. It was a much needed time of reflection and relaxation.

After achieving enlightenment, I decided I was ready to again tackle the bunny slope (since everything else was for people who knew what they were doing and wanted to live). An hour passed and I was growing tired of zigging and, yes, zagging among the little people. Noticing my improvement, Jamie and Matthew convinced me that they knew a route that I could handle up at the top of the mountain. Like the idiot I am, I agreed that I was ready for the big time. I did have a solid 4 hours of skiing under my belt.

We got on the lift and ascended the glorious mountain. As our elevation increased I noticed that our visibility did the opposite. Where did all the trees go? Where was the ground? Where was the mountain? Why did I listen to them?

These questions raced through my mind as we exited the lift and went back out to the cold and as I faced certain and blind death.

We started down the mountain. I went down. This is truth. I went down frequently and painfully. You would have thought it was my second time on skis. You’d be right.

It turns out that Matthew and Jamie didn’t really know where they were going. The fog got us quite lost. It led us to the two hardest trails on the mountain. They were so hard, in fact, that nobody was going down them. That is, nobody but us was going down them.

It hurt.

It hurt a lot.

It still hurts….a lot.

When we reached the bottom, I decided that was enough for the day. It ended up being enough for the rest of the week. Like a senior citizen, I was having terrible pain in my hips from my constant falling. Luckily I found a gnome who comforted me. He was quite gentle, as far as gnomes go.

All in all it was a good trip. I saw a couple castles (including Dracula’s supposed home), fell down a mountain, ate at a KFC (perhaps the highlight of the trip), and watched Walker Texas Ranger a few times. Chuck Norris! Yeah!